Aspen Institute: Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman
The Aspen Institute is hosting Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman on Wednesday, September 9th, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
For decades, economists and policymakers have debated how to help workers get better jobs. But what if the more fundamental problem is that employers have systematically redesigned work itself to make a third of the workforce expendable? In his forthcoming book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman examines this idea and what it would take to reverse it. Osterman documents the rise of contract workers, freelancers, and what he calls “marginal workers” — W-2 employees who are cut off from training, advancement, and any real stake in the organizations they work for. Together, these three groups now make up more than a third of the American workforce. Osterman argues that this trend is neither an accident nor an inevitable byproduct of technological change. It is the result of deliberate choices employers have made about how to structure work and manage labor costs. Osterman traces both the logic behind those choices and their consequences for worker well-being, economic mobility, and the broader social contract.
Join the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on Zoom, for a conversation about what drove this transformation, who bears its costs, and what it would take to reverse it.
Click here to learn more and register.
